Liberation Technologies, Civil-Military Relations, and the Arab Spring

• In Event: Challenges in Comparative Civil-Military Relations

Abstract

What role did social media truly play in the Arab Spring? Was it really both sufficient and necessary, as some suggest? Using evidence from Egypt, Bahrain, Jordan, and Syria, this paper suggests that social media was neither necessary nor sufficient to credibly challenge the autocratic regimes in the region. Rather, liberation technologies were and continue to be subject to two important civil-military scope conditions that limit the degree to which they can be effectively employed: the capacity of the state and the politicization of the officer corps. Strong regimes with high state capacity are able to exert control over the dominion of the state with much greater ease and speed than weaker states, resulting in faster responses to protests organized using Internet technologies. Additionally, a politicized military that is loyal to the regime is much more likely to use force indiscriminately to preserve the rule of an autocrat, while a military that is more representative of the people will exert more pressure on a leader to abdicate in order to ensure the preservation of the nation. This conceptual framework then suggests that social media is not a revolutionary force, but instead only hastens the demise of already unstable regimes.

Author

• Carrie A Lee, U.S. Army War College